


Not A Usual Honeymoon

by jalendavi_lady



Category: Super Paper Mario (Game)
Genre: Apologies, Camp Nanowrimo, F/M, Family Drama, Father-Son Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Injury Recovery, Magical Injury, Post-Canon, Suicidal Thoughts, Tribe Of Darkness Has Issues, newlyweds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 07:09:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15310104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jalendavi_lady/pseuds/jalendavi_lady
Summary: Blumiere thought the reversal of prophecy would send them somewhere they could be together.Then Timpani recognized where they were.





	1. Chapter 1

The world faded to white.

The world faded to black and resolved into a dimly lit cave with stars visible through the opening some ways away.

Timpani recognized it immediately, for how could she ever forget?

Blumiere wobbled, then started falling over. She helped him to the cave floor, wiping the sharper stones away.

It was strange, having a proper body again... but there was no time to think about that.

Or time to think about how the magical illusions that had finished out his appearance as Count Bleck dropped to reveal the young man she had known, a little older and more beaten but still  _ him_, fast enough that it had to have been out of his control.

"Blumiere?"

"Magical shock," he told her in a wavering voice. "I was under magical influence for so long. There's... there's no avoiding withdrawal shock after that." His eyes weren't focusing right. "I'll... I'll just have to tough it out." He swallowed hard, she was sure part of it was from fear of what he knew was coming without daring tell her how bad it could get. "There are only a few worlds where anyone would know how to treat it, and... and I'm not fit to be moved from here."

The plea not to leave him alone went completely unstated but she heard it, loudly.

_ Blumiere doesn't know where we are. _ She sat next to him, eased closer so that he could use her lap as a pillow--there was nothing else softer than a rock that they could use--and gently wrapped the edges of his cloak around him for warmth.  _ Of course he doesn't know where we are, his eyes aren't working right and it's night out. _

It was the cave they had used as a rendezvous point so many times. The cliff he'd fallen from the day they met was less than five minutes' walk from where they sat, and his father's castle among the Tribe Of Darkness was so close she could walk there slowly before noon no matter how close to dawn it might be.

The purity heart combining with the chaos heart had restored their home world and restored them to it.

What a sick joke. They'd wanted to find a world where they could be together, and instead they found the one world where they could  _ never _ be together... only now, they  _ were _ married and if the old count wanted to object then disowning Blumiere was the chief option he had left.

Maybe home could be  _ home_.

Blumiere just needed to 'tough it out' and get better, that was all.

They wouldn't have been sent here if there wasn't a way it could all be okay. Not when their love had been enough to create a purity heart all by itself.

She leaned back against the cave wall, ran her fingers through his hair in the hopes it would be a comfort and a distraction, and waited for the dawn.

"I'm staying right here with you, Darling," she told him. "I'm right here with you."

* * *

By the time the light of day reached them, dimmed as it was, it was clear Blumiere was doing worse.

"I thought the power of that book had left the world," she stated quietly in a moment when her own fears wouldn't be calmed.

"That's the problem," he murmured. "If it hadn't been banished, I wouldn't be this sick."

"Blumiere..."

"We don't have another option," he reminded weakly. "I have to tough this out. Consequence of what a fool I was."

His color was wrong, and it worried her. He hadn't been that shade since the closest he'd come to death after falling from the cliff, and that time he was getting better instead of worse.

That had been physical shock instead of magical shock, and the other symptoms were different, but...

_ But physical shock can kill, _ she thought suddenly, feeling very cold.

"Please don't fret over me," he begged with the little strength he had. "We're... we're together now, and I did this to myself by being a fool. That's what matters: we're together now."

"Yes," she told him as she forced a smile with all the effort she could muster. "We're together now. That's what matters."

She understood: Blumiere was trying to keep a brave face for her, to whatever end this led to, because he couldn't bear her distress at his distress.

And they both already knew she wasn't leaving him. Not when they'd gone so long apart. Not when he was this sick.

Not when he didn't know there was any reachable help and not when she knew the only reachable help was distinctly the last person Blumiere needed near him unless the old count had been shocked into better behavior himself.

And Timpani was  _ not _ the right person to go check that.

* * *

At twilight, Blumiere looked as washed-out as the sky. "Timpani?" he asked in a whisper.

She ran a hand over his hair again. "I'm right here with you, Blumiere."

"I'm... I'm sorry for everything. Except for us."

There was something in the weakness of his voice that terrified her.

"I know. It's all right. Don't worry about that now."

The corner of his mouth twitched up. "I love you, Timpani."

There was something about the way he said it, something  _ final_, that made her want to scream from the depths of her soul and never stop.

Instead, she gently eased herself out from under his head and settled down beside him, throwing an arm around him. "I love you too, Blumiere."

He smiled oh so weakly at her as his eyes drifted shut.

She kissed him on the mouth and he barely responded for a moment and then...

And then he just lay there beside her, responding to nothing, breathing evenly but nowhere near deeply enough.

She tried not to cry, in case he could still hear her.

She knew enough about the world and knew him well enough to know he'd suspected he was too weak to wake again unless something changed for the better  _ and _ that there would be no spontaneous recovery that would make that possible.

Unless something changed, Blumiere might not make it to tomorrow noon, and Timpani was certain the next twilight would find him still and cold.

And her a newlywed widow with no safe place to go. Not without him there to protect her. Not with the rules she'd broken and not knowing any way to another world from this one where there could still be consequences from having loved him at all.

...But if she left, and left right now...

She knew how long getting to the Tribe Of Darkness would take and what paths to take, even in the dark. They would know about these things, they had to have been the ones to teach Blumiere about magical shock in the first place. He'd never know if she tried and failed to get help to him, unless Jaydes told him at the judgment, and if she tried and succeeded he might live.

There might be enough time to get there and get back in time to help him. In time to save him.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Timpani hadn't even been gone a half hour when she heard someone else approaching on the path and had to dart to the side and hide.

_ Who would be near the cliff at this time of night? _ she thought.

She only felt safe because she had traveled the woods so often after dark to meet Blumiere that little bit sooner and knew when she had missed the cutoff to go down to the cliff base and the cave nearby. She was even safer now with the cliff at her back and no risk she could find the edge in the worst possible way.

But the only reasons Blumiere had not ended his game the day she found him was that he hit enough ledges and debris on the way down to slow his fall  _ and _ she had found him soon enough for first aid to be worth anything. Accidentally walk off the cliff edge in the night with enough speed to clear the slender ledges below, and your game would be over a breath later at the bottom. Do it without enough speed, and your game would still be over before anyone knew you were gone and could come looking.

Blumiere would have had a magical light summoned before he got this close. A small one, but enough. After the fall when they met and the speeches she'd given him during his recovery, he was healthily cautious of the cliff edge.

She stayed quiet and still as the figure approached.

The clothing was familiar. He had to be a man of the Tribe Of Darkness.

The first luck she'd had all day, or someone that could destroy all hope for Blumiere.

They had to know what he'd done and what he tried to do.

His father at least had a family tie that  _ might _ make him listen long enough to learn Blumiere had changed. The others could reject him completely on the matter of their love much less marriage alone, the stated reason his father had been so vehement in his disapproval.

And if Timpani was incapacitated this night... Blumiere's game would end even if hers did not.

She stayed hidden.

And then, she knew him. She would know him anywhere.

It was the old count. 

Blumiere's father was on the path toward the cliff at night alone and with no summoned light.

Curiosity kept her hidden. He was still the best chance for Blumiere, but he was heading the right way. She could just follow quietly for a bit and see what he was doing before making her presence known.

He didn't notice her presence when he walked past her.

He didn't notice when she stood up when he was barely twice his height in front of her.

He didn't notice when she followed him, staying that far behind him.

He didn't even notice when she accidentally stepped on a twig behind him.

That was when Timpani knew something was horribly wrong.

This was nothing like he'd been when she had met him.

She kept following but moved ever so slightly closer, increasingly sure that nothing good was meant of this walk in the woods by starlight.

* * *

The old count did at least seem to notice when he reached the clearing at the top of the cliff.

It was the only thing he seemed to have noticed the entire time she'd been following him.

He slowed, taking everything in, and then dropped to his hands and knees and crawled to the edge.

Timpani understood and the horror of the unfolding scene made the night seem that much colder.

The old count was contemplating the distance to the bottom, giving himself a good look at the long way down.

And he was the absolute only chance Blumiere had left.

He crawled back a few feet and moved to stand. Timpani somehow knew he'd prepare to run for the edge once he was on his feet.

"If you love Blumiere, you'll stop," she told him loudly enough he'd better notice while she got ready to tackle him if he didn't respond.

He looked at her with revulsion in his eyes but didn't try to get up. "If you really loved Blumiere for even a second, you will let me go." The flatness and grief in his voice was terrifying. "He opened the book. He destroyed this world. And it has been restored with every life held within it. I know what my forefathers foretold. The only way to stop the prophecy was to end the game of the one who was carrying it out. My son is gone."

"My lord..."

He silenced her with a glare. "My failure to keep him from the book. My failure in dealing with you and him that pushed him to open it. My failure to my people, to all people in all worlds, when I had been entrusted its care as all my forefathers were for 1,500 years and more before me. Whatever ghost or hallucination or vision you are, know this: I know my son must surely be in the deepest depths of the Underwhere by now for his crimes. And the only thing I know to do to fix any of my failures is to let my sins in all this take me there myself so at least my son will not be  _ alone _ with the horrors  _I_ have sentenced him to."

He moved to get up and she tackled him before he was steady, making sure he fell farther away from the edge instead of towards it. She sat on him, and in his shock he didn't try to push her off.

"I'm me. No vision or ghost or hallucination. Me, Timpani. Blumiere wasn't the one in control of the chaos heart when it was canceled out and the worlds were restored. Someone else was. That person's game ended. I was with Blumiere when it happened and we found ourselves in the cave where we used to meet, only he didn't recognize it. He said he was in magical shock from the effects of the book being destroyed and he'd have to tough it out but he kept getting worse. I didn't leave until he fell asleep and wouldn't wake up. I don't think he ever will again unless you help him and that's why I was in the woods tonight. Please. You may still be able to try to make things right in this world for him."

"How long?"

"He stopped responding as twilight ended. It's not been long at all, and he's close by." She felt like crying and tried to keep it down for Blumiere's sake. "Please, at least see to him in his last moments even if there's no hope at all."

"There may yet be hope. Let me up and lead me to him." His voice was still terrifying, and not in the way it had been when he'd harmed her in the name of defending Blumiere from questionable life choices, but she was fairly sure he was not going to take a running leap for the edge the moment she got off him.

She nodded gravely and got up, having no choice but to trust his words.

They walked into the night together.

 


	3. Chapter 3

It wasn't long at all before they were at the cave and the old count was kneeling over his son with a conjured light. He stripped off his own cloak and waistcoat, then folded the waistcoat for a pillow under Blumiere's head.

"Without help, his game will end," he confirmed.

Timpani sat on a rock, unable to stand.

"With help... he has a long recovery ahead of him. I will need water and rest after this, and he will need water and later food when he wakes. Do not break my concentration until I call out for you. I will not respond to noise, so whatever you can do to have water ready for me would be welcomed. I will not be fit to find it myself." He took a deep breath, then laid down beside his son. "It will be hours before he wakes, but if you could prepare to make food for him when the time comes as well, that would be ideal. Keep your mind off worrying as much as you can, it is not going to help him if you fret."

"I'll do what I can," she told him. The spring was close enough in the cave that water would be no issue--he obviously didn't know they had a private water source at hand.

"I am sorry I frightened you," he told her, almost as an afterthought.

"I would have had to walk all the way to your castle if you hadn't been so close. Would Blumiere have had time for that?"

She was almost afraid to know the answer.

"No. We... we might have made it back before his game ended, but there would have been no hope left."

She swallowed the emotion in her throat, trying not to let it come out in her words. "Then it's all to the best now, isn't it?"

"I suppose."

Their eyes met in understanding that Blumiere was all that mattered right now.

He spread the discarded cloak over them both, pulled his son close, and closed his eyes in intense concentration.

After a moment, when she was sure he was deeply focused on whatever he was doing to save Blumiere, Timpani finally let herself give in to the urge to cry.

Neither of them would be awake to know.

* * *

Timpani was thrice cried out with a slightly chipped jug of water waiting and the start of a foraged supper for three when the old count began to stir.

"Water," he gasped, and she could tell by the sound how dry his mouth had become. He must have known it would happen.

She knelt beside him and helped him sit and drink, noticing that he only flinched the first time she touched him. And that could have been from the familiarity of it as much as from her being a human instead of 100% Ancient stock. "There's more where this came from. There's a spring in back, swift and pure. So drink as deeply as you need, and I'll refill it for Blumiere while you recover and wait for him to wake."

He had drunk over half the jug before he weakly pushed it away. "Thank you."

She nodded, not wanting to say anything he might make her regret later.

"He should be sleeping now, deeply enough he will not wake until he is ready, but he is not comatose as he was before. And he should start getting better instead of getting worse, which is the important part."

"And you?"

He waved off her concern. "I shall recover as well. I have done this before, though not in such dire need, and I will know if anything has gone wrong with days of warning to get  _ me _ help. But this magic is deeply thirsty work."

"What did you do?" she asked politely.

There was no response, and she knew she had overstepped into magical affairs a mere human was not about to be told about by the count of the Tribe Of Darkness no matter what temporary truce there was between them.

He stayed quiet long enough to make it clear he was intentionally not answering her. Then, "What happened? I only ever knew the passed-down stories about the prophecy. I did not think wresting the status of prophecy-fulfiller away from the one who first claimed it was even possible."

She took it as an opportunity to tell the entire story, and began it with waking up in Merlon's house transformed into a Pixl with no memory. Beginning the journey guiding Mario with the rip in the sky hanging over a town that lay in no world. Remembering slowly who Blumiere was, and coming to the terrible realization of what she must help do. Nolrem's claim to be a descendant of the Tribe Of Darkness, and how abandoned Flopside looked compared to its Ancient-maintained counterweight. The minions and the castle.

Blumiere reasserting himself over his chosen identity as Count Bleck and trying to have his game ended when he thought the choice was between his existence and hers.

Dimentio seizing control of the chaos heart and the Dark Prognosticus. The last-ditch try to overcome the last thread of existence he'd used to cling to it.

"And unless I misheard the bells as the cancellation transported us here, I believe your attempt to keep us from eloping failed spectacularly, my lord."

He considered a moment. "This may be a good time for you to go refill the jug for Blumiere," he finally said gently. "Before we get settled in to wait for his waking."

She nearly wanted to throw the jug at him.

* * *

The time it took to refill the jug was not nearly enough time for her to calm down.

After she'd saved Blumiere's life. After she'd saved  _ his _ life.

To be shunted aside that easily, as if she were a servant in his house instead of his new daughter-in-law...

Which, admittedly, was nicer than he'd treated her the last time they were in an enclosed space together.

She placed it down gently on the stone she'd been sitting on.

The old count had his cloak pulled off Blumiere again. "Now, I believe your place is down here with us, Lady Timpani," he told her with practiced grace.

She stared.

"That is, after all, the correct style for the wife of a lord," he reminded her. "And Merlon's transformation trick would not have worked if you did not have significant Ancient blood and latent inborn magical strength through it--untrained, but there. We are distant kin, and I believe your tale of Flipside and Flopside balancing each other  _ may _ give me a way to justify this to my people. At the very least, enough that you two will be left alone even if not welcomed."

She stared. "...My lord?"

"Everything will require planning, but Blumiere won't be fit for comfortable traveling outside this cave for months. There's time, and I'll need to involve him as well."

"My lord?" she repeated in shock.

"Please, Count Umbric if you must be formal where my people can hear, Lord Crepero otherwise. And after everything I did, I do not think I can even properly request terms of address of you in private."

"I..."

He gestured for her to sit on Blumiere's other side. "Part of what has damaged him is that he has not been completely alone in his own mind for quite some time, by his experience of the worlds, and adjusting back to being alone in such a primal way is a shock by itself. The best medicine for that is being closely surrounded by those bound to him in various ways. Parent-child bonds are among the most potent. Marital bonds are as well, and while your marriage is fresh I think the lengths that you two have gone for each other marks it as considerably more potent than might be otherwise assumed."

She sat. "So, just being near him will help him?"

"Indeed. While he was comatose, it would not have worked. And while he was fading, it would have been futile compared to the damage done. But now that he is sleeping, his subconscious will let him benefit. When did you last sleep?"

She didn't have an answer.

Pixls didn't sleep. Not the way humans and Ancients did. And her last true sleep she had any memory of had been before he'd cursed her.

He took that as an answer. "Come, lie down. Rest and wait, and help Blumiere while you sleep. My cloak is big enough for the three of us to use as a blanket, and I doubt he will object to his shoulder being your pillow. The increased contact may even help him."

"You might object," she told him awkwardly as she laid down and dared cuddle close to Blumiere properly for the first time.

"You spared both of us from an old man's mistakes tonight," he told her with a shake of his head as he spread the cloak again. "Things are different now. We can discuss the past and the future once Blumiere is well enough to get his tale and his opinions in as well."

Timpani nodded. "Yes," she yawned, "he should have a say."

_ He should have always had a say. _

 


	4. Chapter 4

"Timpani?" Blumiere called out weakly.

She woke into a comfortable half-doze and patted his chest with her hand. "I'm right here with you," she softly reassured him.

"But... I..." Confusion mixed with fear in his voice. "What happened?"

There was a great half-bark of a yawn from behind Timpani. Lord Crepero had clearly gotten up to stretch his legs at the least while Timpani had stayed asleep.

Blumiere froze.

"She was wise enough to understand you were not going to survive without help. She was also fit enough to recognize this as a cave in  _ our _ home world and be fully capable of navigating between here and our castle. Fortunately for you, I was going for a walk in the starlight and was already nearly here on my own."

"Father?" he asked tentatively, disbelieving, as if anyone else could have said those words.

"I am here. We'll discuss the future when you are better. You having a future at all is enough for me to be satisfied with the situation right now. I will need to leave before anyone starts looking for me and finds you two here, but I think departing tomorrow morning will be soon enough for that. I have gone on overnights alone in the wild often enough no one will complain, and they know I have many things to think about."

It was practically art how he avoided giving Blumiere any reason to suspect he'd nearly charged off a game-ending cliff not half a day ago in grief and remorse. Timpani had spent so much time terrified of the old count that she'd never had the space to appreciate him. He seemed to have a genuinely good-hearted drive to protect his people and anything entrusted to his keeping, which he'd been taught included the fate of all worlds, but had been handed an erroneous and often cruel understanding of how to go about that monumental responsibility.

And whoever he'd been when Blumiere first picked up the book and was lost, that was not the same person who had banished her. She still didn't know how long Blumiere had wandered between worlds searching for her before he decided to simply end everything.

With the Dark Prognosticus forever neutralized, the old count could worry about local matters. And since he'd failed  _ by _ following the inherited understanding of things...

Life around Lord Crepero, the Count Umbric, could be interesting as he asserted himself against the things that had been sharing  _ his _ head.

Timpani patted Blumiere again. "He's been acting like a gentleman," she reported softly. "So don't worry."

The old count came over with the jug. "You need to sit up and drink, even if it takes the both of us helping to hold you upright and get the water to your lips. And then  _ I  _ need to rest again. Getting you to the point where you could heal on your own at all was no easy piece of work, Blumiere."

"I didn't know there was any option besides trying it," he said softly.

Timpani helped him sit, getting an arm under him and lifting him with her as she moved to lean against the cliff wall. "Well, there was."

"Lady Timpani has been quite determined to find a way for you to be all right," the old count told him warmly as he helped Blumiere drink. "Including tackling me to force me to see reason."

Blumiere spat water across the chamber. "She did _what_?"

"Sat on him until he believed you were here and agreed to come with me, actually," she filled out dryly without giving the most important detail away.

"You sat on  _ the _ Count Umbric?" His eyes were wide. "Wait, what did you just call her?"

"It is the proper style for the wife of a lord," the old count reminded Blumiere as he put the jug down. "So unless and until our people force me to disown  _ you _ over everything or anything that you have done, she is a lady."

Timpani saw the disbelief on Blumiere's face fade into contentment.

There would be no challenge to the marriage itself by the Count Umbric.

_ This _ could be the world where they could be together. The only home they had wanted, before everything fell apart for them. The world they were born in, the world they found each other in.

Compared to that and in light of everything they had faced to be together, Blumiere's lordship was a cheap price. To Timpani, at least. She knew Blumiere might think differently if things came to that.

She also knew being with her would win out in the end.

Blumiere leaned against her and closed his eyes again. "I... thank you, Father," he said softly. "That's... that's all I wanted, really. This. Us. I..."

His father sat on his other side, braced into a place in the wall where it would be easy to lean back and rest without lying down, and gently pulled him away from Timpani. "Hush. We both need to rest. And we need to not leave you alone unless there is no other option, and that means trading off who is with you regardless of any drive you may have to make up for lost time with Lady Timpani. She has to have a chance to take care of herself and walk around. And she will be the only one here taking care of you when I  _ have _ to leave you two. I will come back with supplies, but I cannot take care of you long-term without our people finding out you are here. And I do not want to risk that until you can be moved, Blumiere. Whether that means both of you going to the castle or finding you some comfortable refuge in some other world."

"I understand."

"That was the magical equivalent of a sucking chest wound that had progressed to cause a collapsed lung, Blumiere," the old count told him sternly. "If there was a warm inn with a soft bed and filling meals not a quarter mile away, trying to move you there would kill you right now. Transitions between sitting to eat or drink and lying down to sleep properly are going to be hard enough on you that they need to be minimized as much as we can manage, at least for this next little while."

"Father..."

"And keeping you around, despite what you did, is worth the bother and aggravation."

Blumiere laughed ever so slightly, and Timpani knew it was a family joke she wasn't a party to yet.

This was the first time she'd ever seen them interact as father and son, even when the old count had been trying to drive them apart, and she found herself wishing she could have seen this side of the pair before everything had happened.

Before long, the two were dozing again.

Timpani got up and started pacing, needing to feel herself move.

It had been so long...

Blumiere made a distressed noise in his sleep.

She came over to them and leaned close. "I'm not going anywhere, Blumiere. I just need to move around, that's all. I'm still here."

She kissed his forehead and the contented sigh let her know she'd gotten through to him enough that he wasn't going to fret in his sleep.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Lord Crepero woke restless and wandered around the cave and the clearing outside considering and arranging things as soon as they had all eaten what little Timpani had managed to throw together between seeing to Blumiere's needs and her own exhaustion.

"I need you two ready to survive here on your own for at least three days if need be," he quietly told Timpani when Blumiere fell back asleep and was less likely to comprehend it enough to worry. "And I cannot stay much past dawn. There is less than a day left, and I will need to sleep again before I leave."

When the heat of the day broke and the shadows grew long, the old count did his own foraging runs into the surrounding forest while Blumiere dozed and Timpani fussed over him. They all ate well when Blumiere woke and there was plenty left over to last until his return.

"When I was younger, I ranged all through these woods," he told them when they were all comfortably full and being companionably social in the dying light. "There are secrets in the forest, off the trails, and not even I know all of them. There are keys our family has held for generations and the locations of the locks are lost to time. Back when I was young and foolish, I wanted to be the one who would find them all."

"What did you find?" Timpani asked him, picking up on the cues of a storyteller at work.

"I found one. Only one. And I dared not test which key went with it. Who knows what hides beyond it? Our ancestors saw fit to lock it and walk away, but left the Dark Prognosticus where it could be found and used. It could be a door to another world, or to a vault with a horror best left there undisturbed. How was I to tell? And who knows what opening a door to another world could mean for this one?"

The weight of responsibility, as always.

"In any case, searching like that meant staying out for days or weeks in the years before my father passed and I became Count Umbric. And that meant finding food out here. Proper food, not a few leaves and a handful of questionable dried shrooms. Those days ended before Blumiere was born, but I still remember enough to be useful."

It was a rare casual reminder that the old count was truly old, and if not for magic's effects on his lifespan he would be wearing out in earnest by now. Blumiere had been a cherished late-life surprise to a count expecting to leave everything to a sororal nephew and a countess who scarce had enough life left to her to live to be remembered.

Blumiere had spoken of the situation rarely. His father had been like a stormcloud over their time together before everything had gone so horrifically wrong, and Blumiere had seen little reason to believe his mother would have acted any differently if she had lived long enough to see her son fall in love with a human.

"I'm glad you remember," she told him. "I won't have to leave Blumiere until you return except to go to the spring. And that's better than I would have done. What I wouldn't give for a picnic basket like I used to bring here..."

Blumiere laughed slightly, half-awake and resting in contented satiety and acceptance of their current safety. "Me too. Especially with those cookies you used to bring." He was still very sick, and it was still visible on his face at the slightest glance, but the fear in him was gone and the signs of acute discomfort were growing rarer.

He was still gravely injured magically where she couldn't assess the wounds for herself. Even so, the change in him eased her fears and the continued aid and promise of it from his father did the rest.

When Blumiere healed, there would be things to worry about.

Now? When he had been so sure his death was the only way she could live? When she had initially been so sure of the same thing? When she had so recently faced the horror of recognizing him and what he had become in her absence all at once?

Now would have been a decent honeymoon, if only they had a bed instead of a cave floor with no blankets.

The thought of a bed made her yawn. She went ahead and settled down next to Blumiere again. There was no reason not to start trying to get comfortable. There was nothing left she needed to do unless Blumiere or she got thirsty in the night. As far as taking care of him went, she'd done everything before on the day they had met when the slightest motion caused pain for him. The old count could take care of his own preparations for the morning, and she suspected he was about to settle in to sleep himself. They could afford to just be quietly together.

She felt Blumiere sigh under her head and smiled, closing her eyes.

Then, he made a questioning noise.

"What is it?" she asked.

She looked up again and the old count was staring at her with something grim in his gaze.

Blumiere looked as combative as anyone that close to death from exertion possibly could.

The old count held up his hands in a placating gesture. "I mean no harm. But I am struck by the thought that after everything she's been through in the past few days... someone ought to have a look at Lady Timpani through magical eyes. And unfortunately, I am the only option to do it. I will not do so without permission, but I do have my suspicions of what I would find."

Fear rose.

"Nothing dangerous, if I am right," he told her. "But it would be better to know."

She nodded. Even if he hadn't felt guilt over what he'd done, he'd feel a debt over what she'd kept him from doing  _ and _ giving him a chance to save Blumiere's life.

A moment later, he spat out a few words she hadn't been sure he knew.

"Father?"

"As I suspected. Mild magical shock from the transformation back. I doubt there is any danger, but the more rest and sleep she can get the faster she will recover."

"So what you're saying is, that until you get back with supplies in a few days, I'm to spend as much time cuddling with and napping beside your son as I can  _ possibly _ tolerate. He is to do nearly nothing at all, and that little required for survival, and I am to do as little as I can get away with. No one should disturb us, so we have practically nothing to do but lie here and luxuriate in simply being together without opposition at last for at least three days beginning at dawn tomorrow. Do I have this correct?"

"...yes."

Blumiere laughed weakly, clearly delighted.

There would be time for guilt and shame later. For now, the only people who knew where to find him knew how deeply the Dark Prognosticus had been influencing him and keeping him calm and quiet was the most important thing in her world.

She closed her eyes again, content.

Some time later, she heard the old count lie down on Blumiere's other side.

"I will be sure you know when I am leaving, my son," he whispered.

Clearly he thought Timpani was asleep. She was not about to give him any sign he was incorrect, and she suspected that if Blumiere knew he wouldn't give it away either.

"I'm sorry all this happened," Blumiere whispered.

"And I am sorry for my part in it as well." A shifting noise. "Nimbis above, Blumiere, from my point of view it has not even been a week since that  _ thing _ took you from me. And every legend I had ever heard made me think your game had ended when I woke up on the ground and the world wasn't gone."

"I'm glad it was all undone. I'm glad this world is still here. Until I woke up with you beside me, I hadn't dared hope for that."

There was a long pause.

"I am going to try to make this right for you two, understand? We can talk about the future once you are well enough it is a sure thing you will have one. Until then, I will do my best to keep you safe and comfortable here. It is the very least I can do. So do not worry and do not fret, that is your father's business right now and not yours."

"I understand." Blumiere sounded half-asleep and a yawn swiftly followed the words.

Timpani snuggled just a little bit closer.

 


	6. Chapter 6

True to his word, the old count left at first light with as brief a series of parting words as he could possibly get away with.

Timpani found herself actually missing the old man before midday, trapped in the awkwardness of finally being alone with Blumiere after everything and him not speedily heading to the edge of death.

It felt odd that it was awkward.

"Being alone with you like this should not feel this strange," Timpani told him as she lay there with him. "We're married, we went through so much for that to happen, we were trying to find a way to be together for so long..."

"Of course it feels strange, we thought the chance it could ever happen was practically just a dream and yet it's happened now." She could almost hear his smile. "I went from thinking you dead to married to you in less than seven days, Timpani. I don't regret it, but... but I might have liked the engagement to last longer than a walk across a room."

She laughed. "And I had total amnesia of my past for so long while I was in Flipside and then when we were trying to stop you. I would have liked a bit longer to adjust back to remembering being together, time to be us again, before we were married, but there was no time. And then I was so scared we were going to have to kill you, but once it seemed like there was another way  _ you _ were the one who thought there wasn't..."

"Shhh. That's all past, my beloved Lady Timpani," he tried to soothe her with nothing he could use besides his voice. "It didn't happen. We found another way."

She impulsively put her hand over his heart, just so she could feel it beating.

"What feels strange to me is having the time to  _ waste _ together just lying here. We were always snatching moments, trying to make every minute I could get away count."

"I used to meet you on the path, just to have that little bit longer," she reminded him.

"This is shamefully indulgent."

"Technically, this could be our honeymoon," she told him with a laugh, remembering what she'd thought the previous day. "We're supposed to be shamefully indulgent about spending time together."

"I shall have to make a formal complaint to the innkeeper about the state of the lodgings," he joked weakly. "The mattress feels like a slab of rock."

She laughed, then drew up on her elbow and kissed him.

The response was weak, as she'd expected, but it dashed the last of the terror of their last kiss from her mind.

Blumiere was here with her, and he wasn't going anywhere if he could do anything to prevent it.

* * *

They did everything they could to make time have no meaning.

They ate when they were hungry and drank when they were thirsty. They talked in the light and they talked in the dusk, and once they both woke in the pitch black of overcast midnight and reminded each other of the time a thunderstorm had caught them in this very cave for an hour while the lightning danced in the sky.

They slept when they were tired and slept sometimes just because they could finally wake up beside each other.

And when they weren't talking or sleeping they often simply laid together with their eyes closed, content to simply feel the other near.

Why was there any worth in counting time anyway? The old count would be back when he was back, and if the food ran out before then Timpani could go gather more--and the longer she rested before she tried to, the better for her.

They started to catch themselves waking up together, as they finally had a chance to become familiar with the signals that meant the other was nearing wakefulness.

Timpani found herself dozing off whenever he was too exhausted to stay awake and wondered if she was making up for all the dreamy hours she'd lost as a Pixl.

Their time alone was not all blessing.

Timpani learned the signs he was having a nightmare, and by what she thought was the second night she was awake and comforting him before he'd woken himself up.

The quiet storytelling of overcast midnight was preceded by Blumiere waking in the pitch dark and being completely unprepared to unexpectedly face anything that reminded him that much of Castle Bleck.

Blumiere needed physical help with anything more strenuous than talking, and this time there was no physical injury or physical pain to help make not being able to care for himself seem any less shameful.

Timpani had never been quite so aware of Blumiere's pride that he was not some prince with servants to "dress me and wash me and wipe my..."

That was when she usually started laughing.

"I am the heir to a count who does things," he explained grumpily after a meal when they had made a spectacular mess of his shirt with no idea if getting it off him was safe or not and had settled on simply leaving it unbuttoned and spread open until the remnants of the meal had at least dried. "I don't agree with everything he does, and he's repenting of a lot of what he did, but he  _ does things _ besides sit in that castle and lord about being Count Umbric."

She giggled and walked her fingers up his bared chest until she poked his nose. "I'll have you remember that when you fell off that cliff and I found you, the only way to treat your wounds was to undress you and wash you and check over every last inch of you before you were well enough to wake up.  _ Before _ I knew you weren't what the rumors claimed of your people, much less a man worth falling in love with."

"And what  _ did _ you think of me when I was all naked and helpless and completely dependent on your mercy? I never bothered asking before."

"Mainly that 'the patient's lips are turning blue' as a sign of extreme physiological distress is worse than useless when his  _ everything _ started out blue."

Blumiere laughed weakly.

"Good day!" the old count called out from the cave mouth. "If he is laughing, he must be more comfortable."

"I am, thanks to you," Blumiere told him while glancing at Timpani. She caught the double meaning and smiled.

"I was limited in what I could bring even with magic, of course, but I think we can manage to make you both more comfortable. I cannot stay for long past doing that, not this time, but I can help with that much."

He'd used most of his carrying space for two bedrolls, complete with pillows and extra blankets for padding. Timpani almost wanted to hug the old count when she saw how much pain left the corners of Blumiere's eyes once they'd gotten one between him and the hard ground and gotten the dirtied shirt off him.

A few more days of decent food. A basic set of camping cooking supplies she hadn't had stashed in the cave, and the other things she would need to have a fire at the mouth of the cave if she wanted to use them. Washrags, which she had never thought she would miss so much.

A few personal items no one else would notice missing from the castle, like Blumiere's own hairbrush.

"So, what was the joke?" Lord Crepero asked to pass the time as Timpani spread out her bedroll beside Blumiere's and fussed over him.

"Nothing important," Blumiere told him far too quickly.

The disbelieving noise the old count made was pure reflex of knowing his son was definitely hiding something.

Timpani looked Blumiere straight in the eye and the look she got back...

Lord Crepero, the Count Umbric, had never been told what really happened. The cover story Blumiere had made up to save his broken pride remained intact.

The story that he fell into a small ravine not off the cliff, received much less extensive medical help that matched what injuries were still visibly healing when he dragged himself back to the castle, did not have the at least hour long memory gap he'd never gotten back from immediately before the fall, and that the help he received had been from someone he'd never seen again. Not from Timpani.

The last thing they had wanted was for Lord Crepero to think they were a matter of patient and carer falling head over heels for each other. They weren't. That had only gotten them as far as being acquaintances across the cultural barrier. 

Actually getting to know each other once the barrier didn't matter anymore had taken them from acquaintances to friendship to love.

And apparently Blumiere hadn't even thrown that in his father's face when she'd been gone.

"Blumiere," she hissed under her breath.

He gave her a look, then sighed with complete helplessness washing over his face. "Go ahead," he told her weakly. "It can't hurt anything now but my pride. And that's far past mending."

She took a deep breath. "This isn't the first time I've taken care of him when he was hurt. He didn't fall into a ravine, he fell off the cliff. He doesn't know how, because the last time I asked he still couldn't remember at least the last hour of walking it would have taken to get him there. And it wasn't some unknown stranger who was never seen again who found and helped him, it was me. The story he told you when he went home was for the sake of his dignity. That's what we were joking about: how we met."

Stillness.

"Blumiere, we owed her a debt for saving your life and you said nothing?"

"You'd have only objected worse."

"You did not even tell me when you knew I was threatening her."

Timpani could feel the fight brewing and neither of them was in any state to have it now, especially not Blumiere.

"By the time I thought things were desperate enough it was worth saying, you'd told me she wasn't in this world anymore." Blumiere would have yelled if he could have risked it, if he'd had the strength left. "And then searching for her and planning on never coming back when I found her seemed the better path forward. Only I didn't find her, you'd let me think that meant her game was over, and I'd had years of seeing world after world of wonders with nothing but pain in my heart to twist me around inside."

"Blumiere..." the old count said softly.

Blumiere turned his face away as much as he could and closed his eyes.

Timpani and Lord Crepero looked each other in the eye, then nodded as one.

This was no time to continue to argue, and the last thing Blumiere needed was for his father to stick around a minute more than he had to.

* * *

Timpani followed him out of Blumiere's earshot.

"I am sorry," the old count told her. "Things would have been different, but I know he's not ready to hear that yet."

"How?" she demanded.

"I would have focused more on changing his mind and less on scaring you off. Or at least I hope I would have." He sighed. "The years after he left, before he came back... I am not the same man who hurt you, Lady Timpani."

"I believe that much from you," she told him.

"This will not be the last time he rages at me, I assure you," he told her.

"I would be worried if he didn't. It's never a good sign when he starts holding things in."

A brief ghost of a smile, probably at the thought she already knew Blumiere that well. "No, it is not." A sigh. "He is not ever going to heal completely from this, I hope you have realized. It is all a matter of how much he can heal. That level of traumatic sudden magical withdrawal after such deep and lengthy influence... he will not be working any great or casual magic for the rest of his life, if anything my people have passed down about such damage is accurate."

She remembered Blumiere walking down a trail to meet her, the gentle glow of magic light resting in a ball over the palm of an outstretched hand.

"There are no records of anything this deep, or of anything counteracting it so strongly. He may always be at least a partial invalid, Lady Timpani."

"I'm not leaving," she ground out, even as she tried not to bristle at the term. Blumiere's people were isolated and avoided outside ideas, of course they still thought that was the correct term.

The old count held up his hands defensively. "I did not mean to suggest you would ever consider it. But you do need to understand that this is no matter of healing for a month or a year. Blumiere will be recovering from this until the day his game ends. He will come to understand that, and he will rightly blame me for my part in it, and then he will rage and rage and rage. At me." He lowered his arms and straightened up, clearly trying to regain a sense of dignity. "And I am glad he is still here to do it."

 


	7. Chapter 7

Timpani walked back to Blumiere.

He was still lying there with his head turned aside and his eyes shut.

"Your father left," she told him.

"I heard." His voice was scarily flat.

"Blumiere..."

"I'm better at listening than I used to be. I heard everything."

She laid down on her bedroll and cuddled up next to him. "I'm staying. You know that, right?"

He turned his head and looked at her. "I don't know who I am without magic."

"You are Blumiere husband of Timpani, for starters. And incapable of being exploited by anything like that book ever again, if you want to look on the bright side of everything. And your father loves you more than you know."

He sighed in exasperation. "Our people came here and separated ourselves to preserve magical ability. I'm functionally useless as an heir now, from that perspective."

"I don't think that means much to him now that the thing you were all protecting from use was used and no longer needs protecting."

"What would you know about him that I don't?" he accused softly. "He threatened you, he attacked you...  _ I _ should be the one defending you from him."

"Shh. Calm down." She wrapped her arm around him. "I have my reasons. You weren't awake to see how concerned he was when he pulled you back from the brink. He's misguided, severely so whenever he tries to enforce the way your ancestors wanted things to be, but I don't think he's intentionally malicious." She thought for a moment. "He was taught keeping things the way they were, everyone separate, and guarding the book was the way to protect all people of all ages. I was a threat. Our love was a threat."

"He wasn't wrong about that." Pain washed over his face.

"It was only a threat because he opposed it," she reminded him. "Calm down and rest, we can't change the past and everything you destroyed was restored."

He lay still a moment.

She gently pulled a blanket over them both. "Have to keep you from catching a chill from the draft," she said lightly.

He yawned uncontrollably.

"See? You've done too much today. After all it took to get this bedroll under you, I'm not surprised you need a nap. And you've had nothing but rock under you for how long now?"

"I hate this," he admitted. "I really hate this."

"What do you hate most about it?"

"Beg your pardon, I thought you wanted me to stay calm."

"I do want you to stay calm." She raised up on an elbow, looking down at his face. "But I also want to know whether there is anything I can think up to make this more tolerable for my beloved."

"Feeling like a burden to you, after everything. Even when you aren't right beside me, all you can do is take care of me or pace. You said yes to having a husband, and you got a needy man-sized sack of dried shrooms instead."

She laid back down. "There's an interesting and distracting thought."

"What?"

"How much health could a fighter get back if he ate a man-sized sack of dried shrooms, and would it balance out the damage eating a man-sized amount of anything would do to his guts?"

"Depends on the fighter. O'Chunks wouldn't have had a problem. Feeding him was a logistical nightmare." He sounded choked up by the end.

"I'm sure they're all okay."

"I wish there was a way to know."

She squeezed his hand. "I'm sure they're worried about us, too."

He nodded. "I wish I  _ wasn't _ sure about that."

She yawned. "So you remember, I am dealing with a lesser form of shock myself. And before I transformed, I flew I do not want to calculate how far in a body that was absolutely incapable of sleep. I want rest and I need rest. And finally being able to risk sleep near you, much less beside you, is a wonderful thing."

"That's right," he said in a voice that made it clear he was on the border of dropping off himself, "we never did risk either of us napping here. Too much risk we'd fail to leave when we needed to."

"You're not a burden, Blumiere. You're hurt and I'm hurt and that's why your father is doing the food gathering."

"What if I don't get better  _ enough _ ? What if you're still stuck taking care of me years from now?"

"Then I have a few more worries in my life and the presence of my beloved to make up for them. And I think if it comes to that, your father would help us arrange something more permanent than staying here by ourselves." She laid her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. "I need to rest, Darling. I'm sorry. You need the company while you're lying still and awake, I know."

"You being here is enough from you for me," he told her. "I should probably be grateful I'm not in chains somewhere after what I did."

"Everything was undone, that we know of," she reminded him without stirring. "If this world was restored, then all the others must have been as well."

"I was looking in his eyes when I did it. I was not myself, but I was looking in his eyes as this world fell away and him with it," Blumiere told her flatly.

"He knows you weren't yourself and he loves you. And I love you."

* * *

Blumiere was awake when she woke up.

"Shouldn't you be the one dozing the world away?" she asked him.

"I slept," he assured her. "But I haven't been doing much else."

She got up far enough to lean over and kiss him on the forehead. "I think keeping yourself alive counts. At least at the moment." She settled back down beside him, content to snuggle close. "He never did tell me what he did to help you. Even when I asked."

Blumiere sighed. "There's a side-effect of constant magic use. Appearance altering. Strength magnification. The tricks he's used to extend his life. Higher-order beard maintenance. All of it. Constant manipulation of magic gets you used to treating your reserves as just another set of energy reserves, a pool to offset depleting your normal physical energy. And when there's significant magical damage from something being ripped free, it works in the opposite direction."

"Like the Dark Prognosticus suddenly not being in the same reality anymore," she thought out loud. "The chaos heart was recent, like picking a fresh scab. But the book had been with you for years."

"And with a deeper, longer, emotional connection from knowing I would be its next keeper when I eventually became the next Count Umbric. I was a wineskin with a burst seam."

"He used his magic to patch you up. His reserves were down, that's why he didn't tell me anything!" she realized. "I'm still an outsider, even after marriage, and I could have used the weakness against him. That's why he needed to sleep so much before he left, he was recovering as much as he could before anyone could possibly see he'd done heavy magical work."

"I'm still healing the magical wound--I can feel the drain of it. That's why it was so dangerous for me the first few days, I had nearly no physical reserves left to live on."

"That's what he meant about long-term effects, isn't it? It may heal well enough it will stop draining anything but your magic, but there will always be a drain on your magical reserves."

"It's quite likely," he told her. "It's also quite likely the physical drain will never end."

"Blumiere?"

"Hmm?"

"Don't worry about that until there's a chance it could be true," she told him. "We shouldn't worry about it now, while there's no way of knowing. You should just rest and heal as much as you can."

"I feel less sick," he told her. "I'm a lot more comfortable than I was, even if I still don't feel like moving around."

"Are you sure that's not just because of the bedroll?" she asked him lightly.

She looked at him just in time to catch the wry smile. "Some of it, perhaps."

There was a long quiet time in which they were simply together.

"It may be that constantly feeling my life trying to drain out may be affecting my emotions more than I realize," he quietly told her.

"We'll get through it together," she told him gently. "Try not to worry. Let yourself heal."

Another long stillness.

"Timpani?"

"Yes, Blumiere?"

"Do you somehow think that constantly reminding me to heal is somehow going to make it happen faster?"

It wasn't until she'd raised up to glare at him and caught the smile that she realized he was finally feeling secure enough and stable enough to poke fun at her properly.

"I can't do anything else to help but talk to distract you and tend to your physical needs," she reminded him. "They're only words, but they're something I can offer. And I missed talking to you."

"I've missed talking to you, too." He weakly fumbled for her hand and squeezed it ever so slightly.

She didn't pull her hand away from his grasp until after their next mutual nap, when delaying eating a moment more was no longer an option.

 


	8. Chapter 8

Lord Crepero was a day late by Timpani's count and Blumiere was already getting anxious.

"We have plenty of food left, and who knows what he's doing," she reminded him. "He could already be on the way here."

"You don't have to remind me that I'm being unreasonable," he told her. "I can't help it. And after what happened the last time he was here..."

"Blumiere, he loves you and he knows you have valid complaints against him," Timpani reminded him for what felt like the thirtieth time that morning. "He already berates himself enough about the past, he's not about to throw neglect or abandonment of a sick adult son onto the list of his sins over you adding your voice to that internal judgment."

"I still don't know how you can be so sure when you really barely know him at all," he told her.

"He was devastated by what happened to you because of what he did to me," she reminded Blumiere. "That alone means he'll try to make things right with you. And he won't strand me here with you and no support, not after he's finally learned what really happened to you that day. He's just coming later than we hoped."

She still wasn't telling him about what had happened up on the cliff. She wouldn't unless there was no other way. Not now that she knew his own condition was part of what had him agitated so often.

She wished she could take all his worries away, but she couldn't. No need to pile unnecessary ones on top of the constant physical drain that was making him prone to fret.

And it would be unnecessary. Lord Crepero knew Blumiere was still among the living. The risk he posed to himself would only return when and if Blumiere's game ended, and that only if Lord Crepero was still certain his son was doomed for the deepest depths.

She had her doubts that he still thought that, now that he'd heard a more extensive version of what had really happened back then and had heard Timpani's version of what had happened since.

* * *

The old count finally arrived as they were settling down for the night, twilight fading into darkness outside and both of them beset by an attack of post-dinner contagious yawning that kept getting passed back and forth between them.

"It took longer than I had planned, but there is a long-term solution," he told them with an excited gleam in his eye. "No need to consider how healed Blumiere has to be before he can be moved."

Blumiere looked uneasy. "Father..."

"It struck me after I returned to the castle that your accident may not have been an accident at all."

The words were simple and devastating. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you displaced a pack of cousins who had all been wondering which of them would manage to outlast me and inherit the title by the simple fact of your birth, and then on the cusp of manhood you are found injured at the base of a game-ending cliff with no memory of how you got there. If it was an attempt on your life, there would have been no drive for a repeat attempt. You were doing your best from that point on to give reasons why you should be disowned  _ and therefore removed from the succession without bloodshed_."

"That's not a long-term solution, that's a threat to his life!" Timpani responded irately. "We've got no means of defending ourselves here and the castle would be worse. And he's in no fit state to go through a dimensional door, even I know that much about magic."

"My solution is to make this cave defensible," he told her. "You have a safe water source to start with. They would have to burn half the forest down before arson had any effect. You are both already comfortable lodging here, and there are ways to make that better. And to put it bluntly, I need eyes and ears on this end of the forest thanks to what I have done today."

"We still can't defend ourselves like this," Timpani reminded.

"Which means bringing in someone who can."

"Someone who could be in the pay of anyone back at the castle? No, I'll take my chances."

"Blumiere, trust me."

"No, I trusted you when I was younger and I shouldn't have. I tried to find a middle ground when I should have left with Timpani before you could catch word I was even considering it. And now she's a target as long as I'm a target."

"Blumiere, when I was younger I ranged all through these woods, and of all the lost secrets of our family the only one I ever found was a single locked door. Very close by, halfway up the cliff on the other side with a very convenient trail that was simple to clear. And I hold the family keys now. Timpani's story made the few notes about it make perfect sense when they had seemed like complete gibberish before."

"Lord Crepero?" Timpani asked.

"The door is open. By my legally valid choice as Count Umbric."

"So now we have an open door that was locked for a reason and possibly also relatives out to end my game, wonderful. I was hoping to dream tonight, Father, not get caught up in a waking nightmare."

There was a clattering noise somewhere near the cave entrance.

Lord Crepero didn't respond to Blumiere's weak outburst. In fact, he'd stopped making noise at all.

The sound didn't go away.

It was almost familiar, somehow. She'd heard it before. It made her want to tense up to fight.

Blumiere was clearly not paying enough attention to hear it.

"Listen," she told him. "There's something."

He tilted his head against the pillow for a second, listening, and then made an unthinking habitual attempt to sit up on an impulse that didn't make it past the first movement of his arms. "Mimi?"

"Flopside was built by the Tribe Of Darkness. They locked the door and gave the Count Umbric the key when they were done, didn't they?" Timpani asked in growing joy. "That's why the entire town is in such bad repair. But that means there's a door to there from this world, and from there to everywhere we've been lately. You aren't setting a guard on Blumiere, you're giving him access to the minions who didn't abandon him when he came back to himself, a reason to be out here in service to the Tribe without much monitoring, and permission to set up properly in this cave system."

The old count inclined his head to her and grinned. "Indeed. Along with access to anything that can be gotten in Flopside or Flipside. Food, furniture, extra clothing. I have it all worked out with Nolrem and since everyone there knows what you two did to end the destruction, you will have help if you need it."

Mimi came in and O'Chunks followed right behind her. And then...

"Nastasia?" Blumiere's voice was full of disbelief.

"Yeah, so apparently anything Dimentio did with magic came undone when the chaos heart was canceled out. Looks like he forgot to read the fine print." There was a harsh edge to the joke. Then, softly, "Um... I'm glad you found her."

"Hmph. It's a good start to a lair but it's going to need a lot of work," came a voice from the entrance.

Timpani almost couldn't believe it. "Bowser?"

The koopa waddled in and shrugged. "Mario keeps destroying my lairs, so I have a lot of experience in fast defensive construction. Not like I was doing anything else."

A laugh. "What he means is, Merlon and Nolrem wouldn't adjust zoning to let him set up a house to his liking and the koopa army is still trying to find a location he finds suitable in any available world. He's  _ bored _ out of his shell." Princess Peach slipped out of the shadows behind him and hugged Timpani. "I'm so glad you two are okay, Lady Timpani. I figured with everyone else coming here, and what Count Umbric told us about Blumiere's condition, you'd need a friend too."

"Mario and Luigi?"

"Setting up house in Flopside for now. There's an abandoned house on the ground floor that finally opened up, and since Mario ended up with the key it's theirs if they want to stay."

"Piccolo's place?"

Peach nodded. "I'm sure they'll come visit sometime, once everything's stable here."

"And you're okay being here with..." She glanced meaningfully over at Bowser, who was deep in contemplation of the cavern dimensions.

Peach smiled. "Nearly destroying the worlds by finally getting what he thought he wanted calmed him down. We're fine. And everyone agrees it didn't count."

The old count coughed meaningfully.

"Thank you, Father," Blumiere told him. "This..."

"This is going to be a serious responsibility once you're ready for it," Lord Crepero told his son. "But others can be everything but the decision-maker, if it comes to that, and you have a ready-made outpost staff right here that you already know can work together. And now, we will only need to see each other if we want to or if the security of the world absolutely demands it. You do not need to tolerate my presence to eat." His words were grave.

The fight that ended his previous visit hung in the air.

Blumiere shook his head. "I want you in my life, if I didn't we probably would have run before... before things happened the way they did. But it's going to take time to work through everything together." He looked profoundly tired. "And I just want to sleep and not think for a while."

"We were about to settle in for the night," Timpani explained. 

"My apologies for the timing, then." He knelt beside Blumiere. "Truce until you're fit to stay awake for a day and sit upright?"

Blumiere nodded. "Truce."

The old count hugged his son awkwardly and stood. "I need to be getting back, he needs to be sleeping, and you all need to settle in."

After a few goodbyes, he left.

Timpani laid down on her own bedroll. Blumiere was already half-asleep, fighting to keep his eyes open. She rested her chin against his shoulder, enjoying the peace on his face at knowing everyone was all right. Real peace, not the kind he'd tried to convince her and himself of when he'd thought ending his game would save the world. "We'll all still be here when you wake up," she promised him.

Somewhere further back in the cave, O'Chunks was asking Mimi whether 'Lord Blew-Me-Ear' would want to move further from the entrance when they got a proper bed moved in.

Blumiere was barely aware enough to faintly smile.


End file.
